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breaking news

Ferry Captain Lost Arm In Accident

Our April 11 column helped solve the mystery of the World War II-era ferry between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach. Now, a couple of readers have shed more light on the ferry’s captain.

According to Norm Oliphant of Lake Clarke Shores, now 83, the licensed captain of the ferry was named De Los DeTar. He and his parents moved from Kinsley, Kan., some time before 1936 and lived along Poinsettia Avenue in West Palm Beach.

Oliphant said the captain had lost his arm as a young man when a generator exploded in a Kansas welding shop where he worked.

Oliphant recalled that the boat docked at the George Washington Hotel, which became the Helen Wilkes Hotel, and stopped in Palm Beach on the south side of the north bridge to the island.

Oliphant’s memories steered us to our archives, which revealed that a ferry service had operated since the 1890s. By the war years, there were four boats averaging 150 trips a day. One capsized in November 1943, but all survived; the story doesn’t say whether it was DeTar’s boat.

The service was still operating into the 1960s. City directories show De Los “Jack” DeTar and parents Monroe and Maude living at 3509 N. Poinsettia, now Dixie Highway, from at least 1936 to at least 1958.

Oliphant said DeTar’s sister and her son later operated a dinner boat in the Fort Lauderdale area. He said he believes Captain Jack died in the 1960s. We searched for relatives in Florida and elsewhere, with no luck.

Maureen Gately Conte of Palm Beach also remembers the ferry. She wrote: “I do remember it as a child. After attending St. Ann’s Grade School on Flagler Drive, I would walk over to the ferry, which by that time was run by some Seminole Indians who were dressed in full garb and were making and selling little Seminole Indian dolls.
They were in a thatched hut where Palm Harbor Marina is now, across from the old Helen Wilkes/George Washington Hotel on Banyan Street. The cost of the ferry was very minimal, maybe 5 or 10 cents. People often ask me, ‘Wasn’t there a bridge?’ And I respond, ‘Of course there was, but I was just a kid. Why walk, when you could take a ferry?'”